tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65714658251589929582024-03-12T18:44:29.150-07:00Model Kit Reviews - I have such disasters to show you!Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.comBlogger185125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-26918777290506535042013-04-02T21:49:00.001-07:002013-04-02T21:49:19.254-07:00Is That All?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Is that IT? Is that all I have to show for myself? I'm afraid so. One cycad from a Tamiya "Tyrannosaurus Diorama Set" is about all I've managed to do, modeling-wise, in a while. I'm afraid I've painted myself into the "too many long projects all at the same time" corner. An AMT 1/25th scale Ford stake truck that seems to absorb as many hours as I can put into it, and STILL be nowhere near completion. The aforementioned Tyrannosaurus diorama, which keeps running into difficulty because I keep painting the dinosaur in various color schemes other than grey, and I never like them, so I strip the model and reprime it and start over...<br />
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I'm not even finished with the cycad, shown above, which consists of about four plastic parts, some paper-wrapped wire, and crinkly green crepe paper that you have to cut out of a sheet. It all comes in the kit, and the paper leaves actually look pretty good, but it took a week for my eyes to uncross afterwards. Alas, however, the paper is two-toned, light green on one side and dark green on the other, and guess who glued the leaves to the wire armatures upside-down? DOH! Maybe mine is a rare pale-green cycad...<br />
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I've been going pretty strong in the areas of buying new kits and looking at the parts and leafing through the instructions, but not so efficient at actually finishing anything. It didn't help that we had a very cold and wet winter (by Arizona standards) and I've been spending most of my time lately trying to get ahead of the colossal growth of weeds.<br />
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But I wrote a stern letter to myself demanding more output, and I'm confident that it'll work.<br />
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<br />Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-89731573284126350952013-01-19T11:20:00.001-08:002013-01-19T11:20:11.294-08:00Iron Man<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Iron Man, by Moebius. Not quite a figure, and not quite a tank, and not quite a car, but something in between all of them. In some ways, this is an excellent kit, not too fiddly to assemble, and with good engraved detail in the parts. In other ways, though, it's a pain. Most of the major parts (arms, legs, head, torso, etc) have highly visible seams, and it takes a lot of work to get rid of them. Not much filler putty, but lots of heavy filing to level the parts, and then progressive sanding to get rid of the tool marks. Some of the seams cross raised detail or occur in places that are hard to reach.<br />
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The upshot is that my natural urge would be to paint the model in process and assemble the pre-painted parts at the end. But the nature of the seams means that you can't do that, not unless you want ugly seams visible. If I were to build this kit again (and I might) I'd probably assemble, file, and sand the arms and legs separately, but I can't find any way to assemble and sand the chest and torso independently. Most of my time was spend sanding and polishing the fully-assembled model before painting, and I think that's just a fact of life with this kit. (I reduced the amount of time I spent on it by not getting too obsessive about the seams on the backs of his legs. I did some work, but not as much as I did on the fronts.)<br />
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The instructions don't offer much insight on painting. The instructions list good painting tips and techniques, but they aren't so helpful in deciding which part is gold or silver or red. Fortunately, there are a lot of references, and since it's a comic book thing, I figure a certain artistic license on the part of the modeler is acceptable (such as the silver I applied to the flexible joints in his wrists and elbows - not prototypical, I don't think, but it makes sense to me, and it's MY model, so <i>neener).</i> <br />
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I spray-painted the whole model with Tamiya metallic red lacquer that was left over from a Corvette model. In retrospect, I wish I had used a somewhat deeper red, but it's still okay. The silver and gold were brush-painted with old-school Testors enamels. I basically brush-painted the whole model with a layer of thinned flat black acrylic craft paint, and then rubbed most of it off with an old sock and Q-tips, leaving the black paint in the recesses and along the edges of panels. I rather like the effect, but then again, I like canned tamales; my tastes need not be taken as necessarily good. <br />
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I enjoyed building it, even with all the filing and sanding, and the fact that it's difficult to paint. I didn't mind the work. But I suspect a lot of kids are going to buy this model and be confounded by the scale of the task, or put off by the amount of sanding necessary. It looks like a beginner's kit, but it really isn't.<br />
<br />Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-38994439002656689422013-01-19T11:03:00.001-08:002013-01-19T11:03:17.547-08:00Dragon LVT<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is the Dragon 1/72nd scale LVT, which I built fairly quickly mostly so I could try Vallejo paints on an armored vehicle. LVTs were amphibious armored vehicles intended to help the Marines invade islands in the Pacific; this particular one is armed with a 75mm howitzer from an M8 and served with the 2nd Armored Amphibian battalion on Iwo Jima. The kit offers two marking options, but I liked this one, because of the sand and brown camouflage. <br />
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It's a nice kit, and quite detailed for 1/72nd scale, especially in the turret. The tracks are a kind of glue-able flexible plastic (maybe Vinyl, maybe not). But they're a little too glue-able; I melted the joining areas right off one of the tracks through overzealous use of cement (you can see the gap in the tracks just over the rear return roller). The Achilles Heel of many 1/72nd scale armored vehicles is the tracks, but the tracks in this kit are quite nice, with detail on the inside and outside, and the proper "scooped" grousers that propelled the thing through water. There are two quirks with the model. One is that the antenna bases are missing. I'm pretty sure these were provided as parts and I merely lost them. The second is the presence of two holes in the rear doors. They look like mounting holes for something, but no parts were provided, and they aren't mentioned in the otherwise excellent instructions. Maybe they're just peep-holes. I don't know.<br />
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I spray-painted it with olive drab (really, Krylon "Oregano") and then brush-painted the rest of the camouflage with Vallejo acrylics. It took several coats to get decent coverage, and even now, the coverage isn't great. When I get around to weathering the vehicle, the blotchy sand and brown won't be evident, but if I wanted this model to show a factory-fresh example, I'd need another coat. Or have to learn how to airbrush Vallejo paints.<br />
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The tracks are painted Oily Steel, and I do quite like that paint. When you first apply it, it looks too thin, like it'll never cover, but it undergoes some kind of transformation as it dries and what looked like poor coverage at first suddenly turns very good. I approve. Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-13021780895704198392013-01-19T10:43:00.002-08:002013-01-19T10:43:54.995-08:00Vallejo Paints<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Behold, my first use of Vallejo acrylic paints. They're all the rage in the modeling world these days, but for a long time I resisted using them, mostly because I already had so much paint on hand that buying more felt like an needless expense. The models are 1/144th scale Russian fighters: an Attack MiG-21MF in Egyptian markings, and an Academy Su-22 in what I think are Hungarian markings. Both were brush-painted with Vallejo acrylics.<br />
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So what do I think? First, the kits: I like the Attack MiG-21; it's quite refined even in 1/144th scale, though a touch fiddly - the wings and horizontal stabilizers have TINY joining areas, and long-term durability is doubtful. The Academy Su-22 is much more crude, simplified and chunky and sporting heavy panel lines that bring the old Matchbox kits to mind. But they're cheap and easy to build, and don't take up much space on the shelf.<br />
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The paint: I've been using craft paints for years, and honestly, Vallejo acrylics strike me as being little more than good quality craft paints. They're good, and I'll probably keep using them, but if you have any experience with craft paint, you'll find Vallejo paints pretty familiar. I like the squeeze bottles, and I think they lay down a little thinner than craft paint, but in most other respects, they're about the same. The main advantages of them is that you don't have to mix colors - if you want US Army khaki, you can get it pre-mixed and you don't have to fiddle around trying to mix it on your own. So, I regard them as good and worth using, but not quite the life-exchanging experience that the buzz seems to argue for.<br />
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(There is, upon reflection, one major advantage of Vallejo paints over craft paints. I've never found a metallic craft paint that was worth anything, but the Vallejo "oily steel" metallic paint is very, very good. Even if I decide not to keep buying Vallejo paints, that's one that I WILL keep using.)Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-12358283560642859992012-09-29T15:52:00.000-07:002012-09-29T15:52:00.133-07:00AMT Boss Nova<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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AMT's Boss Nova drag car kit. I've always liked this kit and I've been meaning to build it for a long time. I stripped the chrome parts with oven cleaner a few years ago, but other than that it's been sitting in its box for ages. <br />
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It's a mixed bag, really. Most of the chassis is simplified to the point of being toylike, and the tires really deserve to be replaced. But the engine has nice detail, and I really liked the "Chrysler Firepower" engraving on the hemi's valve covers. It also comes with a variety of induction schemes, including a blower and crossed fuel injection, but I selected the eight-carburetor setup because I like that "forest of carburetors" effect (and the carbs aren't bad - all I did was drill out their throats). <br />
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I wired the distributor, but routing spark plug wires in a realistic manner isn't my strong suit. I added a few other details - some entirely bogus fuel tank plumbing, a coil, and a tank of some sort I found and glued to the back of the firewall. It could have used better seat belts and cans/wiring on the back of the instrument panel, at least, but I didn't get that far. Most of the decals are what came with the kit, the only exception being the Goodyear tire markings that I got from a Slixx sheet. I also drilled out the headers, but otherwise they're as they were supplied by the kit.<br />
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The paint is mostly Testors two-part lacquer spray paint, with various metallic paints on the engine (burn iron metalizer on the headers and Humbrol bronze on the carburetors), brass metalizer on the wheels, and Bare-Metal Foil for the window trim and rocker panels. I tried to save the chrome plating on the grill and bumper parts, but I ended up having to strip, sand and repaint the grill insert.<br />
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The best part of the kit is the Chrysler hemi engine; the rest is downhill from there. But it was still fun.<br />
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<br />Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-3652085481790791842012-09-29T15:34:00.003-07:002012-09-29T15:34:49.820-07:00Mirage T26S<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is the Mirage 1/72nd scale Russian T26S tank - probably a medium tank in its day, but more like a light tank by the outbreak of World War Two. It's quite a kit, comprising just about a million parts and incorporating a lot of detail for such a small model (64 parts in the running gear alone). </div>
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It isn't fun to build. The plastic is very soft and easily damaged with solvent cement, and the profusion of small parts makes patience not just a virtue but an actual necessity. I needed extra light, reading glasses, and better tweezers to finish this kit.<i> </i>And there are fit problems - in particular, a gap where the upper glacis meets the front of the hull, and another wide gap between the halves of the driver's hatch. But these fit problems may have been self-inflicted; there aren't a lot of positive location pins or tabs and it's entirely possible I misaligned something while I was building it. The tracks are also hard to work with. I'm used to vinyl tracks, and actually prefer them over link-and-length styrene tracks, but these seemed especially slippery and disinclined to hold paint.</div>
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But while it isn't exactly fun to build, it's pretty satisfying to build. There's nothing simplified about it and when one finishes it, one has a sense of actually having struggled and overcome.</div>
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I was going to paint it green and then give it a winter whitewash, but I liked the green (I used Model Master "Soviet Armor Green") so I killed the gloss with Dullcote and brushed on some ground-up pastels and called it good. The kit contained no decals and I chose not to try to paint any patriotic Cyrillic slogans, mostly because my eyes still hurt from assembling the suspension. (I really wanted to paint it as though it were a Republican T26 in the Spanish Civil War, but I don't think they used any T26Ss.)</div>
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Viewing my unbuilt kits, it seems that I must have had a thing for Vickers Six-Tonners at some point. I have four Mirage Six-Tonners, a 7TP (a Polish derivative of the Six-Tonner) and this T26S (a Russian derivative of the Six-Tonner). </div>
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The brief summary: tricky and kind of difficult to build, but I'm glad I built it.</div>
<br />Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-76737653090125040012012-09-29T15:21:00.002-07:002012-09-29T15:21:28.493-07:00Those Horse Guys<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've always liked painting 25mm figures. Back when I played <i>Dungeons & Dragons, </i>back in the late 1970s and 1980s, 25mm figures were not especially common - at least in my neck of the woods - and I hadn't really discovered tabletop wargaming (I was still playing <i>Tobruk </i>and <i>PanzerBlitz </i>with cardboard counters, and liked it that way). But since, I've found that I like itty-bitty 25mm figures, even though I don't really play D&D any more and haven't done any tabletop wargaming since I got out of the hospital.<br />
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(Explanation: While I was in the hospital waiting for my transplanted bone marrow to start making blood cells again, I made some trireme and bireme ships out of pieces of paper, and drew rulers and dice on other pieces of paper and amused myself for several days refighting the battle of Actium.)<br />
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Anyway - I have no idea where these figures came from. I just painted them, glued them to a piece of wood, and made landscape with model railroad stuff. I don't even cut off the bases; I just build up the ground with putty or drywall compound until the bases are hidden. All I really know about them is that they're 25mm figures, and they were fun to paint.<br />
<br />Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-39061871507627426662012-08-20T20:24:00.002-07:002012-08-20T20:24:40.002-07:00Lindberg Interplanetary UFO<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJnDE9gcNnm9irAyHOzMxdd1YesZBCx1d9DTd4GGdH75egFgsiPT-UWOG6oafKd6cNJOcAc4qFymytNhsjh820y2E8DfEYyCgqcUCPdLeUAA6ZQ_Fc2qJt1Ld2ojmNsWlVSlW-N5NVGKwD/s1600/DSC00392.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJnDE9gcNnm9irAyHOzMxdd1YesZBCx1d9DTd4GGdH75egFgsiPT-UWOG6oafKd6cNJOcAc4qFymytNhsjh820y2E8DfEYyCgqcUCPdLeUAA6ZQ_Fc2qJt1Ld2ojmNsWlVSlW-N5NVGKwD/s320/DSC00392.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Lindberg's "Interplanetary UFO" model. I believe the decals used to be for the "USS Leif Ericson" but now it's the "USS Yuri Gagarin". Which is okay with me. The model came in greenish glow-in-the-dark plastic and I was tempted to leave it that way, but the fit wasn't good and I had to do some advanced filing, filling, sanding, and screaming to erase the seams, and that ruined the glow-in-the-dark effect. So I painted it Fifties-style, all bare metal. I also plugged the see-through engine nacelles with plastic bulkheads and glued science-fictiony doodads to the bulkheads (domes from an AMT Romulan Warbird on the front, and sprockets from an M113 to the backs to simulate "plasma thrusters" or something). The paint is highly generic hardware store silver spray paint that I bought to cover up welds on fence panels - it works for models too, but MAN it goes on heavy. Maybe that's a good thing.<br />
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The decals weren't bad. A little fragile, but workable. I sanded the raised windows off, knowing that I'd be using the window decals anyway.<br />
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A view of the shuttlecraft bay. The decal sheet includes decals that simulate machinery on the shuttle bay bulkheads, which was nice of them, because the kit parts had scribbly engraving and looked troublesome to paint. I scratchbuilt new shuttle bay doors out of sheet styrene and bits and pieces of Evergreen strip styrene, as the kit doors lent new emphasis to the term "clunky".<br />
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I still have some work to do. The green paint on one of the engine domes is horribly smeared, and the model needs to be cleaned and overcoated, but by and large, it's pretty much done. The one-sentence summary: fun, but stock up on clamps and sandpaper before you start.Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-5397449136538842592012-08-20T20:06:00.000-07:002012-08-20T20:06:26.999-07:00Airfix Roland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is the venerable Airfix 1/72nd scale Roland CII "Walfisch", which must be one of the easiest biplane models to build (no cabane struts!). I'd been feeling stuck in the middle of too many difficult projects and thought I'd just "do some Airfix", to quote James May. The Roland isn't a great kit - no interior, and the machine guns are at best vague approximations of armament - but it isn't bad. The pilot and gunner figures are a little odd-shaped but not bad, and the fit is generally pretty good. And the decals are quite well-behaved. I built it over the span of a weekend, a task eased by the fact that I could brush-paint it with Model Master acrylic RLM65 and not have to worry about much else.<br />
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Another notch in my "Aeroplanes of the Great War" collection. Notable gaps are now things like the Gotha, the Handley-Page 0/400, the DH4, and Spads. I have no Spads. Why is that? Poor planning on my part, probably.Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-29881297654918409012012-07-07T22:00:00.001-07:002012-07-07T22:00:24.436-07:00Vision Check<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Roden's itty-bitty 1/72nd scale SdKfz-234/1 armored car. I included my hand mostly to show the small size of the finished model. There is a staggering quantity of parts in the kit - 153, according to the Internet. I found it a hard build. Not because the fit is bad, or the kit is badly engineered. It's just that it consists of a lot of parts, and many of them are desperately small.</div>
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Here is a brief summary of the modeling tools you'll find useful in building this kit:<br />
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1. Tweezers<br />
2. Binocular magnifiers<br />
3. Roughly a quart of Old Grand Dad<br />
4. A CD of soothing music<br />
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The suspension is particularly alarming, mostly because the wheels appear to want to float on just the central half-axles, and there's no solid connection between the upper and lower control arms and the wheel backing plate. I attached my wheels with copious quantities of super glue and managed to get them half-assed aligned, but for a while, despair was on the menu and I didn't think I'd ever get them on.<br />
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I painted it with Model Master acrylic panzer yellow, but it looks awfully green on the finished model, at least to my eye. The same paint looks okay on 1/35th scale models, so I think it must be a scale effect. Next time, I'll lighten it with radome tan or something along those lines. <br />
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And there will be a next time, because I also happen to have a Roden 1/72nd scale SdKfz-234/4 "PAKwagen" in my stash. But I don't think I'll start on it any time soon. At least not until my eyes uncross and I replenish my supply of whiskey.<br />
<br />Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-32002010763916531512012-07-07T21:46:00.000-07:002012-07-07T21:46:37.953-07:00Fujimi P-51D<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The oldest kit in my stash: an ancient Fujimi 1/48th scale P-51D Mustang. It's pretty primitive by modern standards, and the alleged detailed Packard-Merlin engine is pretty laughable, but hey, it's progress. Mustang aficionados will recognize the markings as <i>Big Beautiful Doll, </i>and will remark "Hey, isn't it supposed to have white and black checkerboards on the nose and wingtips?" Yep. But the decal sheet didn't offer them, and I didn't feel like masking and painting them myself.<br />
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I'm experimenting with a new phase in my modeling career called "Just build the damn thing already." I know some people who suffer from terrible cases of Advanced Modeler Syndrome, where they can't start a kit until they have at least three different detail sets and twenty reference books. I don't suffer from that syndrome, but I DO historically have problems deciding what to work on. I don't know how many unbuilt kits are in my collection - too many, surely. And sometimes I catch myself standing and looking at my collection and whining because I have "nothing I feel like building." It's like the old Bruce Springsteen song "57 Channels and Nothing On" - I'm so spoiled for choice that I've become practically inert.<br />
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So the new phase: whenever a kit slides off the pile and falls on the floor, I build it - whatever it happens to be. Whether I feel like building it or not. Whether I have detail parts for it or not. Whether the decals are any good or not. Whether I can find my airbrush or not. <br />
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So here it is. It slid off the pile, and I built it. It's brush-painted with Humbrol 56 (flat aluminum, I think) and a little Model Master olive drab. It doesn't have the checkerboards. It doesn't really pass muster. And I didn't even bother with the pilot, who was misshapen to the point of resembling Zira in <i>Planet of the Apes. </i>But at least it's done.</div>
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(I've had the kit for decades. It's so old that the plastic bags containing the parts were breaking up into millions of tiny iridescent flakes. I got the flakes all over myself, and when I saw myself glittering in the sun, I thought I was turning into a vampire.) </div>
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<br /></div>Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-27644501927091799862012-07-01T23:05:00.001-07:002012-07-01T23:05:25.693-07:00Oh, Someday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I've been reading <i>Finescale Modeler </i>and <i>Scale Auto </i>magazines for about a thousand years, and over those years, I've been exposed to a great many really excellent modelers: Paul Boyer, who I think deserves some kind of Lifetime Achievement Award for consistently great work. Tony Greenland, whose weathering of German armored vehicles suggests that he applies paint with molecule-by-molecule precision. Alex Kustov, who makes me want to build cars, and Juha Airio, whose cars are so good they look like miniature people could drive them away.</div>
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But today I speak of Lewis Pruneau, who is (deservedly) famous for building very large dioramas to a staggeringly high level of craftsmanship. Pruneau's work is astonishing, but I rarely want to try to emulate it - it's just so damned <i>big! </i>The thought of painting 100+ figures for one diorama daunts me, to say nothing of having no idea where I'd find a home for a diorama on such an epic scale. I say <i>rarely, </i>because I once saw a Lewis Pruneau diorama in FSM that I really <i>did </i>want to emulate: a diorama of a typical afternoon at the drag races, with a bunch of cars, a bunch of mechanics, a bunch of fans, and a bunch of general drag racing appeal. Ever since, I've wanted to build something like that. Not a part-for-part recreation, but my own take on a local drag race, such as those seen at Speedworld in Surprise, Arizona (near enough my house that I can hear the V-8s roaring on Saturday nights from my workbench). </div>
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So here's my starting point: two drag cars staged on my workbench. I can't remember who made the kits. One's a hatchback Nova (a car I'm quite fond of) and the other is a Chevelle, but past that, things are a blur. They've actually been quasi-finished for a long time, but the other day I happened to remember that the Slixx decals I'd ordered had long since arrived, so I washed the cars off and applied the desired Slixx offerings, mostly tire decals. So there it is. Not quite a drag racing diorama, but it's a start.</div>
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Drag aficionados will note many problems with these models. The Chevelle has no side windows, and I think that's against the rules. Neither has a fire extinguisher inside the car. And there's a dead moth in the Chevelle that would be about three feet long in scale. And I have no idea how to make sense of NHRA classes; I jotted down some classes and numbers the last time I was at the drag strip and painted them on, but who knows if they're right or not. Certainly not I. And certainly not anyone I know. And if you look, you'll see that the Chevelle has a bracket time of 9.97 seconds, but the driver is wearing a short-sleeved shirt. I think if you go that fast, you need to be wearing a fire suit. Or at least <i>should </i>be.</div>
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The Nova is painted Testors Fathom Green, and the Chevelle is painted with some kind of dark grey metalflake, but it has a very rough finish and the flakes are way too big - the perils of hardware store metalflake, I guess. Both have flat black hoods, and drivers cobbled together from Fujimi and Tamiya figure sets. And just the other day I bought a reissue of the "Mongoose" top fuel dragster, and found that the kit came with an actual 'Christmas tree'. So I have that going for me too.</div>
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The point is, someday I'll get around to building more cars. I'm not sure when, but hey, I have to start somewhere.</div>
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<br /></div>Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-91827979456914053292012-07-01T12:07:00.001-07:002012-07-01T12:07:17.493-07:00Monogram P-39<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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To paraphrase The Most Interesting Man In The World, "I don't often build 1/48th scale airplanes - but when I do, I often build old Monogram 1/48th scale airplanes." This is, of course, the rather elderly but still quite nice Monogram 1/48th scale P-39 Airacobra, which has a reasonable amount of interior detail, pretty nice fit, and raised panel lines. It even has flattened main tires, but to me they don't just look flattened, they look <i>flat. </i><br />
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This was supposed to be a P-39D, with the four .30-caliber machine guns in the wings. Which, after I'd assembled the wing, I realized that I'd forgotten to install. DOH! I read somewhere that the Soviets generally removed the wing armament from their P-39s to improve their roll rate, and maybe certain USAAF pilots did the same. I couldn't find my airbrush, so I brush-painted the model with Model Master acrylic olive drab, and used some old Humbrol paint for the interior green. How does one "not find" their airbrush? I store it in a little box, and I think I accidentally threw the box away during one of my intermittent declutterings of the workshop. Well, since my airbrush was a pre-Aztek Model Master job, maybe that's for the best... <br />
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I think there's a goof in the instructions. This same kit can be built as a P-39D or a P-39Q. The P-39D markings are for a USAAF unit in North Africa, and the instructions say it should be painted olive drab. The P-39Q is marked for a unit in the Pacific, and the instructions say to paint it sand. I think that's backwards. But since I had olive drab but didn't have sand, I rolled with it.</div>
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There are a couple of problems with the kit. One is that you can't install the nose landing gear after the fuselage is assembled. Another is that I just couldn't get the car-door windows to fit properly, and in the process of trimming and carving, I dropped the left-side window. I have a hard enough time seeing dropped model parts on the floor, but a <i>clear </i>part? Fuggeddaboudit. I'll find it the next time I sweep the concrete - or not, I'm good either way.</div>
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It's not going to win any awards, but it was fun. And I can't ask for more than that.</div>
<br />Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-10591151064324899082012-06-23T10:47:00.001-07:002012-06-23T10:47:34.702-07:00Finished Black Widow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Done. More or less. I'm not too excited about the kit-supplied base, because it makes it seem like she's off to visit the doctor. And I swear I put the right boots on the right legs, but they <i>still </i>look like they're on backwards. <br />
<br />The paint is mostly Testors flat black, Testors metallic grey metalizer, and some anonymous dark grey acrylic (the label fell off the bottle, so I don't know what it is). For the flesh, I generally prime with white spray paint of some sort, then apply a base coat of Delta "AC Flesh", and then apply selective washes of Testors rust. For the hair, I applied base coat of very dark brown (Testors rubber) and then did a whole lot of drybrushing with various shades of craft paint. The boots and eyes got a coat of Future floor wax (yes, I know, in the magazines they call it something like "Pledge with Future Shine", but to me, it's Future floor wax. Period).<br />
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In the movie, Black Widow has hair so red it's almost orange, which I personally am not a big fan of, so I gave her a darker reddish-auburn hair color. Hey, it's <i>my </i>universe.<br />
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The FAMAS rifle didn't come with the kit. Years ago my brother and I went to Home Depot to get some boards for his patio cover, and as we were walking across the parking lot, I saw a plastic rifle on the ground. It turned out to be the FAMAS, made out of some kind of stiff vinyl-like material, and surprisingly well detailed. It was probably a weapon for an action figure, perhaps a French commando, and some kid dropped it. Sorry, kid, but it will comfort you to know I still have the FAMAS and used it to give Black Widow a little more punch in the automatic weapons department. And I happen to like the FAMAS. I have no idea if it's any good as a rifle, since I'm not really a firearms expert, but I think it has a groovy shape.<br />
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If I were to do this kit again (and I will; I have a second one in the pile o'kits) I'll modify the boots because I think they look pretty awkward, and I'll make a different base. And I already have a weapon for the second version, an M203 from an old Glencoe paratrooper model. (I read a Black Widow comic some years ago where the KGB sent a new blonde Black Widow to find and kill the old red-haired Black Widow. Why not?)Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-2115727162402596802012-06-22T22:03:00.001-07:002012-06-22T22:03:14.921-07:00Moebius Black Widow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Does this picture make my head look huge?</div>
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This is my not-quite-completed take on the Moebius "Black Widow" model, which unlike a lot of figures is an actual glue-together thing in styrene and not solid resin or metal. Styrene figures get a bad rap for not having particularly crisp detailing or sculpting, and the assembly process causes gaps and seams that (some) metal and resin figures don't have.<br />
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But with that said, I quite enjoyed the Moebius "Black Widow" kit. Reasonably easy to assemble, though you'll need a couple of pretty serious clamps to hold the body halves together, and don't even bother trying to figure out how to salvage the pin on the right-side hair piece - the pin is pointed in the wrong direction and all you can do is cut it off.<br />
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I'll post more pictures later, when I'm fully done with the figure, but this'll do for now.<br />
<br />Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-26847550356989320512012-06-16T22:34:00.000-07:002012-06-16T22:34:23.845-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Revell's 1/40th scale (or thereabouts) Corporal missile carrier and launch stuff. I built this model more or less on a dare. Every now and then I go into these strange modeling phases where I buy as many kits as ever, but I don't actually build anything. I buy kits, books, magazines, paint, and tools. I lie in bed and <i>think </i>about building something. But I never actually do build anything, and meantime the collection of unbuilt kits stored on the upper shelves of my closet grows and grows and grows...</div>
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Eventually the collection of kits started to slump. I'd go in the closet to get fresh clothes for work, and the disturbance would cause a kit avalanche. At one point I conceived the idea of building MiG-21MFs in every scale from 1/144 to 1/32nd, and one day all my MiG-21s rained down. Another time the Renwal Atomic Cannon slid off the top of the pile, and it's a sufficiently husky kit it actually hurt when it landed on my foot.<br />
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I decided after that the next kit to slide off would be built, come Hell or high water. And it just so happened that it was this kit, the Revell Corporal and launcher, that slid off.<br />
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The kit comes with the Corporal missile, the weird four-wheel-steering carrier, a launch table <i>a la </i>the V-2, and a selection of crewmen, including this guy, who appears to be gesticulating in disgust because the launch controller isn't working right. The only significant molding flaw I found in the kit was massive sinkage on the figures; practically every one of them had hollow backs.<br />
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It's actually a pleasant kit to build. It isn't going to stagger those used to modern Dragon kits with its detail or engineering, but it was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be. There were some tense moments getting the elevating missile cradle to mate with the chassis, because you have to get a set of gears to mesh, and the ladders on the missile cradle were somewhat troublesome. But on the whole, it was surprisingly easy and fun to build. <br />
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I'm sort of used to the idea of the decals in old kits being horrid, but these were quite nice - thin and crisp and amenable to Micro-Sol. The US Army stuff on the cab settled down over the access hatches quite nicely, and the Corporal itself comes with a reasonable quantity of stenciling. <br />
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I experimented with the paint. I often use spray cans to paint monochromatic kits, especially armor models. But most of the olive drab spray paints I've used seem very dark to me (or maybe it's just my eyesight going south; that's also possible). So for this kit, I used a vaguely olive-drabbish color from Krylon called "Oregano". It's a little lighter than I expected, and more like khaki than olive drab, but overall, I'm not displeased with it. Or at least not displeased enough to repaint the whole thing.<br />
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Not bad for a dare, and now that I've actually finished something, I'm starting to have more ideas. Why, even now, I already have two more kits in work - the old Lindberg "Yuri Gagarin" spaceship (the one with the opening hangar bay on the top) and the Moebius "Iron Man" version of Black Widow. <br />
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And there are always those MiG-21s, lurking, lurking, ever lurking...Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-14538444528210060092012-04-08T20:53:00.002-07:002012-04-08T21:29:48.109-07:00Sob Story<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2CJxGMIFtof06baSmHtX1AZi4jWn99mOV1h3G3ODS3m05snjbaedZ_U01dm2cNo3fh428U9JKhMuNJt3JWj4WRiLkMpjepUNUTAhhuJPUyLNP3OtsoPM1fsijIKZcaQGmqETXkfOXoTT/s1600/DSC00297.JPG" style="font-style: normal; "><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2CJxGMIFtof06baSmHtX1AZi4jWn99mOV1h3G3ODS3m05snjbaedZ_U01dm2cNo3fh428U9JKhMuNJt3JWj4WRiLkMpjepUNUTAhhuJPUyLNP3OtsoPM1fsijIKZcaQGmqETXkfOXoTT/s400/DSC00297.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729244315251654354" /></a><i><br /></i><div style="text-align: center; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><i>Italeri 1/72nd V-22 Osprey</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><i><br /></i></span></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ4ORUBhG55kaPNPf3CwKO-L1C9iD37MwqOb3pXQ_gptQrgwkL_lzZuM2w3KvWK4b-LwOVt7H92uosXE4wAWROLNm5v4-lD-yqq81oeZ9Otx3mQ7CeixybN482i5v4bk_bBbH68GxElc9Z/s1600/DSC00296.JPG" style="font-style: normal; "><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ4ORUBhG55kaPNPf3CwKO-L1C9iD37MwqOb3pXQ_gptQrgwkL_lzZuM2w3KvWK4b-LwOVt7H92uosXE4wAWROLNm5v4-lD-yqq81oeZ9Otx3mQ7CeixybN482i5v4bk_bBbH68GxElc9Z/s400/DSC00296.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729244306198767314" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 100%; "><i>Now I need a 1/200th scale Storey Musgrave</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 100%; "><i><br /></i></span></div><br />I'm not dead yet! I haven't even been sick. I just took a break from modeling for a couple of months, mostly because I seemed to be spending every waking moment involved with work. "Yeah, yeah," you say. "We all have our problems and we all have to work, so cry me a river..." But I wasn't complaining, really. Too much work is infinitely better than not enough work. But it does tend to leave one (meaning <i>me) </i>without much time to do any modeling. <br /><div><br /></div><div>To make this state of affairs seem even worse, I confess that over the last six months or so, I've become slightly intimidated by some of the new kit releases. A few times over the last few months I went into my friendly local hobby shop hoping to find something new and fun that would give me incentive to blow the dust off my workbench and start working again, but man, everything looked so <i>hard. </i>Armor kits with a THOUSAND pieces? Oh my God. 1/32nd scale airplane kits of surpassing detail and accuracy that would take me six weeks to finish? Oh my God. It all seemed so... well, <i>intense </i>is the word I'm looking for, I think. </div><div><br /></div><div>I actually had a good cry with the proprietor over this. Remember back in the 1970s and 1980s, when Tamiya kits were the last word in detail, fidelity, and fiddlesomeness in armor kits? Tamiya was the top of the line, the sort of thing attempted by masters, not the kind of thing that rewarded the efforts of duffers and hacks. And now, those old Tamiya kits are actually considered vacations! After tackling a thousand-piece modern armor kit, we go back to those Tamiya kits and say "Wow, less than 120 parts? This is EASY!" </div><div><br /></div><div>And unfortunately, my pile of unbuilt kits wasn't much help, because I'd pretty much cleaned it out of easy, cheap, borderline-throwaway kits like my much-beloved Airfix WWI fighters. Practically everything in my unbuilt collection was something I wanted to do well, and I was pretty sure my skills had deteriorated over the last few months and the last thing I wanted to do was ruin my Atomic Cannon because I had devolved to being a sixth-rate modeler (as opposed to a third-rate modeler, which I normally am, and am perfectly comfortable with). I have many lovely models in my pile of unbuilt kits, but not many that would serve as introductory fodder.</div><div><br /></div><div>So as the demands of work let up and I felt the desire to inhale methyl ethyl ketone fumes grew, I went to the hobby shop hoping to find something cheap and easy and fun, like a Hobby Boss P-39, or the "Tijuana Taxi", one of those dreadful-but-fun "theme rods" that I had such fun with as a boy. Alas, I could find neither one. (Really, I was hoping to find two Airfix kits: the HP-42A and the Handley-Page 0/400, but I knew better than to even dream of finding them there.)</div><div><br /></div><div>But I did find a Hasegawa Shuttle and Hubble combination which I didn't even know existed, and that was enough to push me over the top and get me building again. But build WHAT? The Shuttle and Hubble? No way - I wasn't going to start it, for the same reason I wasn't going to start the Atomic Cannon: I felt I needed to build a few junk kits first, just to regain some basic competency with brush and knife. So that's where the Italeri V-22 Osprey comes in: it was the least interesting, most expendable kit in my collection, and that's what I started with (I haven't finished it yet, and I may not either, but I have to start somewhere, right?).</div><div><br /></div><div>So now I'm learning how to build models all over again, and have made a few interesting discoveries along the way.</div><div><br /></div><div>1. Knives that were dull when put them down months ago don't get any sharper in the meantime.</div><div><br /></div><div>2. Paint that was thick and gooey when you last opened it turns to shoe leather in the meantime.</div><div><br /></div><div>3. That odd fluffy mass behind a paint jar may not be dust; it may in fact be a spider's reproductive effort and prodding it may release a horde of tiny white spiders the size of grains of sand.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. MEK can magically evaporate right out of sealed glass jars.</div><div><br /></div><div>5. Skills that you thought were long dead actually come back pretty quickly. I started the weekend as a sixth-rate modeler, and I feel that I'm already up to a fifth-rate one, and by the time I put the decals on the Osprey, I might actually be fourth-rate again.</div><div><br /></div><div>And then? Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of the Atomic Cannon, most likely. Unless rumors of the Airfix reissue of the Handley-Page 0/400 are true, in which case all bets are off. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-72268044896964585492011-12-20T19:38:00.000-08:002011-12-20T19:42:17.617-08:00Klingon Bird of Prey<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRDHSvp2y1piUevhwpXuyxJ6hT7ME9FcAyHRyGGlcbR4ZiJoTWCGH5VQkU0WWiBX5XV4ipxDQjs91b4zwYOVit9skmx5svCWLyqOA3Ug6Otm7Y4-IIWUPl-VBN_nDItnaoLym1vZN0cKIZ/s1600/DSC00281.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRDHSvp2y1piUevhwpXuyxJ6hT7ME9FcAyHRyGGlcbR4ZiJoTWCGH5VQkU0WWiBX5XV4ipxDQjs91b4zwYOVit9skmx5svCWLyqOA3Ug6Otm7Y4-IIWUPl-VBN_nDItnaoLym1vZN0cKIZ/s400/DSC00281.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5688421022036796210" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9glxANHSt1DbmwBN_bE9RuZlZ2PCnRxutIQpB-7cp85vd5n77RbYegOtDUOUQIyF91EhHUVQHowHrjPSN3tlBoAUcRmCnYohhrAfwEvAcWqmUA_1w6mM61BgvMMCj_-QDrJuCVmWCcQqz/s1600/DSC00280.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9glxANHSt1DbmwBN_bE9RuZlZ2PCnRxutIQpB-7cp85vd5n77RbYegOtDUOUQIyF91EhHUVQHowHrjPSN3tlBoAUcRmCnYohhrAfwEvAcWqmUA_1w6mM61BgvMMCj_-QDrJuCVmWCcQqz/s400/DSC00280.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5688421020001844258" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs0egP2ZSJ-Z5m-isxC4O0gEuSRmRwgb7rUQunLH9__5lPUgnTCWXfAvO8hEBGAXql1aXpQB5od1oW33oPKeQn3_n5m8OXIJIXj4j-HR6ELnkIlbYdB4VeDyCgFpB0fGxCuv3OlbKDxukq/s1600/DSC00279.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs0egP2ZSJ-Z5m-isxC4O0gEuSRmRwgb7rUQunLH9__5lPUgnTCWXfAvO8hEBGAXql1aXpQB5od1oW33oPKeQn3_n5m8OXIJIXj4j-HR6ELnkIlbYdB4VeDyCgFpB0fGxCuv3OlbKDxukq/s400/DSC00279.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5688421015960517490" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwOkpokr3PAnvxZ3hjfcpOzhA4oXOO9-2PlmSuwq-CZn9w5BOf_UnpMexlSggWy0omBEyiIS-K-S7pd1iEMmKpq1jxDzibK12GoKQIkUIINweTtpBgHCRCeun1JMgp3mbqUtMXdxtKmZet/s1600/DSC00278.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwOkpokr3PAnvxZ3hjfcpOzhA4oXOO9-2PlmSuwq-CZn9w5BOf_UnpMexlSggWy0omBEyiIS-K-S7pd1iEMmKpq1jxDzibK12GoKQIkUIINweTtpBgHCRCeun1JMgp3mbqUtMXdxtKmZet/s400/DSC00278.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5688421017145717410" /></a><br /><br /><br />Klingon Bird of Prey, painted almost entirely with craft store acrylic paint except for an overall coat of Krylon "Army Green". This model felt like more of an armor kit than a spaceship to me, which is good, because I haven't built any armor in a while and was getting out of practice.Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-91304668168783407492011-12-18T14:03:00.001-08:002011-12-18T14:15:23.388-08:00Revell Junkers G.38<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqW3HEtJSEOr10U0klyviNWSqnoyUQix4zHzAEYIFxWQ792AM4rYuDSf0tKdXzxvpIc0GUDbj5nVWIrPD1hdVWcLeLS8EQCjzRtcONWPZqwrI6MLoHQdiMh55jaRtN1ZRIU80oAa1_XNYh/s1600/DSC00273.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqW3HEtJSEOr10U0klyviNWSqnoyUQix4zHzAEYIFxWQ792AM4rYuDSf0tKdXzxvpIc0GUDbj5nVWIrPD1hdVWcLeLS8EQCjzRtcONWPZqwrI6MLoHQdiMh55jaRtN1ZRIU80oAa1_XNYh/s400/DSC00273.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687592735205035874" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtlsQq78l-ZaT4u-4MIr1EevZFGEcAuF9fv2VnuzrgqVGOQcMGN1XkrcbfyScLEoMdbhyNk1K2fNacnUL7bAiN1FToL_1RmFjhSOUIMtUIrNS71tntM6_Os51nGdn0rq5-l-f3qPhxmS6m/s1600/DSC00272.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtlsQq78l-ZaT4u-4MIr1EevZFGEcAuF9fv2VnuzrgqVGOQcMGN1XkrcbfyScLEoMdbhyNk1K2fNacnUL7bAiN1FToL_1RmFjhSOUIMtUIrNS71tntM6_Os51nGdn0rq5-l-f3qPhxmS6m/s400/DSC00272.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687592731753520546" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCs2HN-IsqJbEDbaMN2BuyxF-yJuXOxRcp7H54gqh3uDvrAwQYHQ5GNWZx-hWm_TlhrXFK2nFCgmvKY5p1eTdrdg52f8I0Kz6Vcs1HiW7gkcyl2c5IbIK4y_un45knFsSdNXUhEpQR2rUH/s1600/DSC00271.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCs2HN-IsqJbEDbaMN2BuyxF-yJuXOxRcp7H54gqh3uDvrAwQYHQ5GNWZx-hWm_TlhrXFK2nFCgmvKY5p1eTdrdg52f8I0Kz6Vcs1HiW7gkcyl2c5IbIK4y_un45knFsSdNXUhEpQR2rUH/s400/DSC00271.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687592722749277570" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdhJMx6izFx05L0mtdvPLxfApcuh00yJOkbvAHc9OPzecvXm6rYeeY-WJXKHsCvvld_mDZgFB_Fg-o6ezjsv-34b8HlCv4WFy_NI19uonKTyddl7i6P6_Xp0iJGZwNjW_CV3Xeym0PutJa/s1600/DSC00270.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdhJMx6izFx05L0mtdvPLxfApcuh00yJOkbvAHc9OPzecvXm6rYeeY-WJXKHsCvvld_mDZgFB_Fg-o6ezjsv-34b8HlCv4WFy_NI19uonKTyddl7i6P6_Xp0iJGZwNjW_CV3Xeym0PutJa/s400/DSC00270.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687592721568247666" /></a><br /><br />These are pictures of Revell's 1/144th scale Junkers G.38 airliner. I enjoyed this model considerably. The G.38 is decidedly unusual, with a combination of an elegantly swept wing, a square-section fuselage that is about as graceful as a box girder bridge, and landing gear that somehow reminds me of a steam locomotive. But it has an odd appeal for me. Maybe its greatest appeal is that it isn't a Panther or an F-16. <br /><br />The kit itself is very nicely done and fun to build. The corrugations are particularly well-done, and the kit even has a modest interior, though I question the accuracy of the control yokes on the flight deck, which look more like something you'd see on the Cutty Sark than an airplane. I didn't use the clear plastic parts for the fuselage windows and used Micro Klear instead, but the other transparencies worked pretty well, and didn't even need glue (the "skylights" over the engines simply pressed in, while the glass in the wing roots, nose and flight deck needed only a little Future to hold them in place). <br /><br />The corrugations make it hard to clean up the seam at the leading edge of the wing, but at the same time, they made it easier to paint the black stripes on the wings. The parts layout of the fuselage leave one with no seams to clean up at all.<br /><br />On the whole, I very much enjoyed this kit, and I personally think it would be a riot to get a seat inside the wings of a G.38 - the view forward must have been quite striking indeed, though the roar of the inboard engines might make it hard to enjoy the airline version of "603 Squadron".<br /><br />PS: Something drastic has happened to the Blogger editor. Either they changed something, or I changed something, but either way, I am NOT impressed with how it's working right now.Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-76227525346210530492011-11-27T11:49:00.000-08:002011-11-27T12:22:11.013-08:00The Eagles Were Coming<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7hBOIFNqfSw4cwef3S6SMxp6zKE-xOa1S2iVUnSWYNfLOuAxHxmPx_ChmV0uuaVPCxIAo9NRL0ma22s_FipppxosIxKXe2Q5iMPyxD3XDPum30FauomCUBXuSgbaV9MsfAH-GceXi9lZw/s400/F-15.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679765341174701234" /><br /><div><div>There's a scene in the movie <i>The Return of the King </i>that amuses me. It's near the end, where Aragorn has led the Army of the West to the very gates of Mordor to distract Sauron long enough for Frodo to slam-dunk the Ring. At one point, one of the hobbits cries "Here come the eagles!" as Gwaihir and his folk come in to dogfight with the Nazgul aboard their great winged beasts (clearly Junkers designs, if you ask me - what's the difference between a Ju 52 and a flying Nazgul beast? Not much). </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, whenever that scene comes up, I think about how cool it would be if they were F-15C Eagles coming in. How would an AMRAAM work against a Nazgul beast? Or would the Lord of the Nazgul be able to deploy some dark ECM to spoof the missiles? Does the Nazgul's segmented armor have some kind of inherent stealth property? Would a Sidewinder be able to guide on a winged beast's (presumably warmish) breath? Or would it turn into a knife fight at close range, where guns and swords become the primary weapons? And if an Eagle pilot shot down a winged Nazgul, does he get credit for one kill, or two? But since the Nazgul are neither living nor dead and can only be undone by swords made in Gondolin and imbued with special Elvish anti-Nazgul spells, does the Eagle pilot get credit for<i> any </i>kill at all?</div><div><br /></div><div>It takes me ten or fifteen minutes to get my head back into the movie once such digressions set in.</div><div><br /></div><div>All of this becomes relevant when you remember that yesterday was Black Friday. My preferred on-line hobby shop (Squadron) was having a Black Friday sale, and I decided that the time had come to finally buy a model I've wanted for a long time, the Tamiya 1/32nd scale F-15C. They run about $130, and that's just a bit more than I can see myself paying for one model. I'm game to buy just about anything up to the $100 point, but once a model crosses that threshold, a certain ouch-factor sets in and I find myself saying things like "Do you realize how many 1/144th scale airplanes I could buy for that sort of jing?" </div><div><br /></div><div>To say nothing of the fact that I really don't have anywhere to put a 1/32nd scale F-15C once I finish it. But to an extent, the finished model isn't the point. <i>Building </i>it is the fun; <i>having </i>it just means I have to dust it and figure out where to put it and how to keep the cat from wrecking it. It's the difference between carving off a huge piece of pie and sitting down to eat it, and all the moaning and groaning that sets in later when you mumble "I shouldn't have eaten so much pie..."</div><div><br /></div><div>So I got my cup of coffee and went to Squadron's website and commenced to buying stuff. But I went about it in the wrong order. Rather than putting what I most wanted in the shopping basket first (namely, the F-15C) I bought a whole bunch of other stuff, so that when I got around to looking at my shopping cart just prior to selecting the F-15, I swallowed my tongue. Cripes, $300 in models already, and I haven't even bought the F-15???</div><div><br /></div><div>Clearly I had to get rid of a bunch of stuff in my cart. But I couldn't. I wanted it all. I wanted the Williams Brothers radial engine. I wanted the set of ICM figures. I wanted the Lindberg velociraptor. I wanted the Trumpeter M26 Pershing. I wanted the Minicraft EC-121. I began to panic. Finally, if only to prevent myself from having a complete nervous breakdown, I clicked on the <i>Check Out </i>button, just to have an end to the madness.</div><div><br /></div><div>So - the Eagle <i>was </i>coming, but due to gross lack of discipline on my part, it <i>isn't </i>coming. I have nobody to blame but myself, but draw some solace from the fact that I can always go back tonight and order it anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I'm wary of saying things like "Such-and-such an airplane was the best fighter ever built!" Such statements are usually pretty subjective, and in any event I'm not a fighter pilot and am not really qualified to have an opinion. But I <i>will </i>say that I really like the F-15's shape, and if I had to pick an airplane to be on my side in an air battle, it would be hard for me to bet against the F-15's undefeated record (there is some debate about what its actual record is, but I've seen 110:0 and have no reason to argue with those numbers).</div><div><br /></div></div>Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-28301286877197492932011-11-27T11:32:00.001-08:002011-11-27T11:46:24.653-08:00Revell Do X<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik_xUVqrF_JTevfrnk1QOI3a2F_02-Denuzr8cLrKr2K2G7NuYhDMNSaYemS-Sd2PH1An9PZDBQHjarbwQUJ__BUEhD-lHncoqtyVdTZ648SghZ0sPFmeZyOp8Wonz9pzWuQDun2odYhJr/s1600/DSC00269.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik_xUVqrF_JTevfrnk1QOI3a2F_02-Denuzr8cLrKr2K2G7NuYhDMNSaYemS-Sd2PH1An9PZDBQHjarbwQUJ__BUEhD-lHncoqtyVdTZ648SghZ0sPFmeZyOp8Wonz9pzWuQDun2odYhJr/s400/DSC00269.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679760962153633938" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghYLXRgSRjRKeqnia1CdpcoIKmivRUvt5eWM70myzg2Lp4brMsYhb9C86uRaNX-ukpyyU2BFEnv_RmDsjQiipx5eUnl2W9nHyfUc-priODSt1_B5sShrD_5c9JYH1qxBPzrsQ2FHUEmeds/s1600/DSC00268.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghYLXRgSRjRKeqnia1CdpcoIKmivRUvt5eWM70myzg2Lp4brMsYhb9C86uRaNX-ukpyyU2BFEnv_RmDsjQiipx5eUnl2W9nHyfUc-priODSt1_B5sShrD_5c9JYH1qxBPzrsQ2FHUEmeds/s400/DSC00268.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679760959582728578" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilelH7-MACPnVRV317SGuokXRYtT3llP3zmYRW0AdqUVYD7ZrxnB06jCiQ9zalBAs1azvC5NinaQVFllmxWDe6sHgKLpQ-qI2nZnmh9KL2l0PWwYCspOz2ds8iMaYxdRiOoIVccpY1wm7v/s1600/DSC00267.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilelH7-MACPnVRV317SGuokXRYtT3llP3zmYRW0AdqUVYD7ZrxnB06jCiQ9zalBAs1azvC5NinaQVFllmxWDe6sHgKLpQ-qI2nZnmh9KL2l0PWwYCspOz2ds8iMaYxdRiOoIVccpY1wm7v/s400/DSC00267.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679760958134283138" /></a><br /><div>Revell's 1/144th scale Dornier Do X flying boat. It was a fun kit. I like the contraction between the rakishly pointed nose and the slabby wing that looks like it was carved out of a railroad tie, and the great profusion of engines and propellers gives it the appearance of improbably ornate Victorian machinery. The kit is pretty easy to build, and features really nicely detailed corrugations on the top of the wing and the leading edge, though those same corrugations are a nightmare to clean up - I just left them be, preferring the slightly visible seam over a much more visible smooth patch. The only real disappointment in the kit are the propellers - the blades seem kind of ill-formed to me, and the propeller hubs have heavy parting lines and flash. But they're hard to fix, because the blades are so thin they snap off if you look at them sideways. And that's bad, because there's a <i>ton </i>of propellers (stupidly, the only part of the kit that had any flash at all were the propellers - it figures).</div><div><br /></div><div>The "biplane" elevators and ailerons are no picnic either. The mounts for one of the elevators was broken beyond repair when I opened the kit, and I elected to just leave it off entirely. If I hadn't mentioned it, you might not have noticed. Sources seem to differ on exactly what color it was. I settled for overall Tamiya aluminum, but I am prepared to be proven wrong. Not that I'll actually fix it; I'll just accept that I was wrong and move on.</div><div><br /></div><div>But on the whole, it's a pretty nice kit of an airplane you don't see every day. The only really hard parts are the propellers and the biplane elevators. A few nips of Jim Beam to calm your nerves before starting the propellers might not be a bad idea - at least you won't care so much when you break one.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div>Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-17904106213552943692011-11-21T09:24:00.000-08:002011-11-21T09:34:09.736-08:00Tamiya Stegasauri<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMb-YN7rVcnM7J7IJhU_qeWHXxGvcIU4cd1_RMqB54FAR9MZgOjhD3QVWhN_m88DVlx6zFi1ULbCZiIPB-WvqMDlx9QIbeD_YIiv1tz14-4OVMC-59DcU4S_V0EkwDMmZ4W6T7Vng2NU1i/s1600/DSC00264.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMb-YN7rVcnM7J7IJhU_qeWHXxGvcIU4cd1_RMqB54FAR9MZgOjhD3QVWhN_m88DVlx6zFi1ULbCZiIPB-WvqMDlx9QIbeD_YIiv1tz14-4OVMC-59DcU4S_V0EkwDMmZ4W6T7Vng2NU1i/s400/DSC00264.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677501367902477346" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVexkOGKLXhnjui0PVQEIspiHucEnc67ksPfEX-s-MvbIHemJ7KPTM6f6e5Pko_c-XucodNEiNVGXFbtLdY5gjQ_KdF18GOcI7JV7PApIgceltSw-X84S94JRlRXfoOedk90I9fAnk0ve5/s1600/DSC00263.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVexkOGKLXhnjui0PVQEIspiHucEnc67ksPfEX-s-MvbIHemJ7KPTM6f6e5Pko_c-XucodNEiNVGXFbtLdY5gjQ_KdF18GOcI7JV7PApIgceltSw-X84S94JRlRXfoOedk90I9fAnk0ve5/s400/DSC00263.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677501364186462642" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5-3VeOWunfMabcYdLrWNZ3ymbDTzh3-33ay6Tcq6WcWi1dVu7rMmBgUBga-iO911WRc_qHqF_6wCce1oETOJHId_il__0823N8nb6pLr0KOk6VXMbtBo_1vWiuBS0yU2hn7-p5WBcgLkl/s1600/DSC00262.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5-3VeOWunfMabcYdLrWNZ3ymbDTzh3-33ay6Tcq6WcWi1dVu7rMmBgUBga-iO911WRc_qHqF_6wCce1oETOJHId_il__0823N8nb6pLr0KOk6VXMbtBo_1vWiuBS0yU2hn7-p5WBcgLkl/s400/DSC00262.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677501364201981170" /></a><br /><div>So THAT'S why my lantana bush looks scraggly and unkempt - dinosaurs have been eating it! It's one thing after another. The squirrels go into hibernation, I finally fix the gates so the rabbits can't get through, and now it's dinosaurs eating the landscaping...</div><div><br /></div><div>These are Tamiya's stegosaurus kits, of course. Curiously for a Tamiya kit, the fit wasn't especially good in places, especially the fit of the spinal plates to the bodies, and the seams are awkward and hard to fix. I concealed them by flowing multiple layers of Testor's liquid cement (the stuff in the little black bottles) around the seams, which eventually filled them in. But for a while the fumes were so thick I expected an intervention from friends and family urging me to seek professional help.</div><div><br /></div><div>Clearly I need to build more predatory dinosaurs lest the ecosystem in my back yard go completely out of balance.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-24606525530775391662011-11-21T08:03:00.000-08:002011-11-21T08:57:06.179-08:00Chaos Howdah<div><br /></div><div>I suspect that most modelers, if asked, could give you a list of modelers who inspired them, or in some way changed the way they think about their hobby. I know I can. Like a lot of modelers of my vintage, I was deeply influenced by the Shep Paine diorama inserts that Monogram shipped with their kits in the 1970s. Those were a masterstroke of marketing, if you ask me - I know I bought Monogram kits simply to get my trembling hands on the diorama inserts even if I didn't really give a wet slap for the kit itself. And here is perhaps the most inspiring one of the bunch:</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim17YzzheC-BF8HR-ngWH4HPZ0s6VWNLzXiahaqwwlD2erUQ2oha7OCH8abOydaPprC1yRiPiCYol6gODPCRgKAsEzdVkFxkMIJsQKrOOHjOtYsrSBqCXe6xPdV8YpuvZ7hi03WItCUmQD/s1600/images.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 298px; height: 169px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim17YzzheC-BF8HR-ngWH4HPZ0s6VWNLzXiahaqwwlD2erUQ2oha7OCH8abOydaPprC1yRiPiCYol6gODPCRgKAsEzdVkFxkMIJsQKrOOHjOtYsrSBqCXe6xPdV8YpuvZ7hi03WItCUmQD/s400/images.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677481668258447634" /></a><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">This is, of course, Shep Paine's diorama of a downed US Navy TBD Devastator that shipped with the old-but-impressive 1/48th scale Monogram TBD kit. I found this diorama deeply inspirational, though on the surface, it doesn't appeal to me at all. I find the TBD uninteresting and, well, <i>oogly. </i>Downed airplane dioramas don't appeal to me in general. And since all of my experiments with making water with polyester resin have failed spectacularly, I generally forget that I ever tried.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But there's something about the ethic of this diorama that I found very inspirational. I didn't want to duplicate it, even when I was a wee lad who wasn't yet shaving. But something about Paine's skill and taste spoke powerfully to me. Maybe I didn't want to duplicate this diorama, and maybe I'd never be as good as Paine, but at least he showed me what was possible, and convinced me that there was more to modeling that just hastily gluing parts together and then just as hastily blowing them up again with firecrackers. Viewing this diorama insert seemed to tell me that modeling could be more than just stringy masses of Testors cement, vast gaps between parts, and shooting holes in vintage M48 tank kits with my trusty Remington .22 rifle (my old "Nylon 66" probably destroyed more enemy tanks than Michael Wittmann, and certainly more battleships than Mitsuo Fuchida could have dreamed of). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Another inspiration was actually a single picture submitted to the Reader's Gallery of <i>FineScale Modeler </i>magazine (henceforth referred to as "FSM", because the bicapitalization in "FineScale" just irks the hell out of me). It was a "chaos howdah" built by Fraser Gray. Fraser Gray is perhaps more famous for his AFV modeling, but the chaos howdah he built was just absolutely flabbergasting. It was a fighting platform mounted on two Airfix dinosaurs and manned (if that's the right word) by various 25mm figures that have all the characteristics of Citadel Miniatures. It was a delirium of dark wood, moss, chains and weird artwork. The banner surmounting the whole thing, a graveyard scene with a bloated moon hanging in a blood-red sky and shining through the gaunt black limbs of a tree... Words fail me. It was simultaneously creepy and cool, and it's one of the few models that I've ever deliberately intended to recreate on my own.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I wish I had a picture of it, but the only known photograph of it is in a copy of FSM that probably now occupies some fairly deep layer in an Arizona landfill. The media may be decomposing, but the memory of his fabulous howdah has remained with me over the years. I've always wanted to build my own rendition of it, and can finally report that I've at least <i>started. </i>I finally found a crucial missing element - 1/72nd scale "skeleton warriors" - and with a crew finally assembled and dinosaurs rounded up (Lindberg anklyosaurs), it was time to finally start cutting wood.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><u><br /></u></span></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2MmPUV3NjoUUQj0fHOw9DRMYgyipNJVIxK7QPKfMWYlhLO_Jm241qGeTxdt1m4TvojlLC7TLtHmy_BomIY0pOB0WvlYu5D8nFiW1oG7pFdBuHnu9SOiCeitxm1bXx4uLqjHxSZyav7l_x/s1600/DSC00261.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2MmPUV3NjoUUQj0fHOw9DRMYgyipNJVIxK7QPKfMWYlhLO_Jm241qGeTxdt1m4TvojlLC7TLtHmy_BomIY0pOB0WvlYu5D8nFiW1oG7pFdBuHnu9SOiCeitxm1bXx4uLqjHxSZyav7l_x/s400/DSC00261.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677481669494587218" /></a><br /></div><div>My version of the infamous Chaos Howdah, with the major pieces plopped atop one another, with a couple of skeleton warriors for scale. I may rebuild the upper deck, which seems a little beefy and might weigh the dinosaurs down. But then again, it's a chaos howdah and they're chaos dinosaurs; who's to say that they aren't really strong? </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-4427313695843134572011-10-29T17:46:00.000-07:002011-10-29T18:02:16.709-07:00Westerners<div>This is what happens when I watch a western on TV, specifically <i>Tombstone, </i>the one with Kurt Russell, Michael Biehn, and Val Kilmer - I root around in my closet and find a bunch of Western figures.</div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAQY9oMBQB7DtkPrvrEK0vXC_nz2BTW96oZhLbSZYd2ceXWeTAfeTO2dPij-hGziIogNYCDCA372oD90N-9Yjj9uk_STSPxdhGwOY1s8PYRgj-9WlhzRN7S4CcRldpGIdGE3QKYKzMckHw/s1600/DSC00248.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAQY9oMBQB7DtkPrvrEK0vXC_nz2BTW96oZhLbSZYd2ceXWeTAfeTO2dPij-hGziIogNYCDCA372oD90N-9Yjj9uk_STSPxdhGwOY1s8PYRgj-9WlhzRN7S4CcRldpGIdGE3QKYKzMckHw/s400/DSC00248.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669080193089798466" /></a>A Bad Guy's view of the Andreas 54mm Wyatt Earp. <div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Fw9sDovRNxXf9ZaDz9SZk0iuKU76862BgXP3H2EDTwm_UmCiEby3ImehKjx3cqaq38dPd0UJLOba76e3bBrifNTrbS5giTOWhoJw1G3A2sr46ETA45p0dCH18uF3fAWX3wo7iTOlU6yz/s1600/DSC00247.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Fw9sDovRNxXf9ZaDz9SZk0iuKU76862BgXP3H2EDTwm_UmCiEby3ImehKjx3cqaq38dPd0UJLOba76e3bBrifNTrbS5giTOWhoJw1G3A2sr46ETA45p0dCH18uF3fAWX3wo7iTOlU6yz/s400/DSC00247.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669080189069961410" /></a>'Tother Wyatt Earp out on the street in front of the saloon, with a couple of locals hanging out on the porch watching him shoot. The guy in the chair is supposed to be the marshal (he's wearing a badge, anyway) but he seems remarkably casual about the whole thing. Never mind the enormous thumbnail on the left. We can edit that out in post-production. His hat, being composed entirely of super glue, is harder than titanium.</div><div><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcHDqeDVmj6Zmd5QhPYVJ0_y6pUOYMSODIbG3ctq6aIByAXR1ZVCaloTAs_d2N6CLqMPkvUeqEnr5a4gnUCAaC0_rfzsyffmm3phr5KIEx1oQcTxKXR0WEq2HPycwrSaRb1VaKzvJliTqf/s1600/DSC00246.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcHDqeDVmj6Zmd5QhPYVJ0_y6pUOYMSODIbG3ctq6aIByAXR1ZVCaloTAs_d2N6CLqMPkvUeqEnr5a4gnUCAaC0_rfzsyffmm3phr5KIEx1oQcTxKXR0WEq2HPycwrSaRb1VaKzvJliTqf/s400/DSC00246.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669080187351002674" /></a>The marshal and his deputy hanging around in front of the saloon. The marshal is a 54mm Andreas figure, while the deputy is a 54mm Streets of Laredo figure. They're both excellent figures too, but the chair was a bitch to assemble, and I never did get all the leg spreaders installed. The deputy (he's really the "No Mercy" gunfighter figure) was the motivation for the scratchbuilt building facade; he's sculpted leaning against a wall, and thus I had to build him a wall to lean against. I intentionally built the building facade a little out of square and a little non-uniform, and was deliberately messy with the painting. This is Jericho we're talking about, dag nabbit, not New York City.</div><div><br /></div><div>I find it immensely amusing that I painted the marshal's shirt with RAF dark green, and his pants with RAF light earth.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571465825158992958.post-5507682044301540572011-10-29T17:38:00.001-07:002011-10-29T17:45:57.133-07:00Shootout at the Schizophrenic Stable<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGp-Z9pdtajQBjGjRFdZ9sZMQfxtph0zeZ34F7YDuJZIAZnVemndd_gdxfNnPfgGt8BIx4d-64mmyNx2HzJFLZyxTc-4s9EkGCdENDLs9pFyKs3dX0H-cljfYuq0oY_KpkME5N9IXuFPl/s1600/DSC00245.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGp-Z9pdtajQBjGjRFdZ9sZMQfxtph0zeZ34F7YDuJZIAZnVemndd_gdxfNnPfgGt8BIx4d-64mmyNx2HzJFLZyxTc-4s9EkGCdENDLs9pFyKs3dX0H-cljfYuq0oY_KpkME5N9IXuFPl/s400/DSC00245.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669078208804357090" /></a><div><div style="text-align: left;">Two men in a gunfight both claim to be Wyatt Earp. At least one of them is lying. Worse, they're both wearing the same hat!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Here we have two 54mm takes on Wyatt Earp. The one on the left (double-wielding) is white metal from Miniaturas Andreas; the one on the right is resin from Warriors. They're both excellent figures with nice dynamic poses and big, easy-to-paint mustaches. I lost the right-hand Wyatt's hat somewhere along the line and made a replacement using the old modeling clay and super glue plunge mold method using the left-hand Wyatt's hat as a master. Perhaps the business of having to share one hat made them cranky and led to the showdown; who knows? </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">They're posed in front of an Old West photo backdrop I made out of random scraps of wood. I still haven't gotten around to making a knob for the door. Doh.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><u><br /></u></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div>Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17962429941351038227noreply@blogger.com0